Ink Strings offers some clever twists on the relaxing task of connecting dots, adding some thoughtful interactions and a hint of story.
I am not sure if puzzlers being cozy is still a thing, but I do feel that Ink Strings has a slow, relaxed aspect to it despite having extremely fun, unique, and challenging puzzles that take you through the game. The game itself starts off simple – connect all the dots to pass the level. Over time, however, other requirements start being added into the game. Cherries appear, with one or two cherry fruit attached to the stem. You’ll need to cross a line through those cherries exactly the number of time of the fruit. Then, pencils start finding their way into levels, and you will need to bounce them off of the completed connected lines to get them to pencil sharpeners at the end of the level.
I found that the grid-like background does a great job of giving you a sort of hint or prediction on where you should be making the lines and what exactly you should be doing with them. It’s such a subtle thing, but feels like it’s added so much additional polish to the levels.
Ink Strings has a bunch of hand-painted pictures that go along with these levels, giving a sort of story to follow along the way. There is also a mysterious hand-painted map that is shown between different chapters of levels. I think that the style of these paintings adds to the cozy sensation of the game, giving it more life.
I got the chance to play this game at DreamHack where I was able to skip around and see some of the different puzzles that were created for the game. The variety in challenge and way that the levels work feels good. In even later levels, there were changes to do with color, depending on what blobs you draw your lines through, so despite being a simple-looking game it’s got a lot of clever mechanics.
Ink Strings is currently in development, but in the meanitme, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
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